James Halliday - Halliday Wine Companion 2014

Wine zones and regions of Australia

This ebook published in 2013 by Hardie Grant Books
Published in print in 2013 by Hardie Grant Books

Hardie Grant Books (Australia)
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Hardie Grant Books (UK)
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Copyright text James Halliday 2013
Copyright map Explore Australia Publishing Pty Ltd 2013

The Australian Wine Companion is a joint venture between James Halliday and Explore Australia Pty Ltd.

The map in this publication incorporates data copyright Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia) 2004. Geoscience Australia has not evaluated the data as altered and incorporated within this publication and therefore gives no warranty regarding accuracy, completeness, currency or suitability for any particular purpose.

Australian wine zones and wine regions data copyright Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation, April 2005

eISBN 978 1 74358 095 0

Cover design by Nada Backovic
Digital editing by Hannah Koelmeyer

Contents

The wine industry finds itself buffeted by stormy winds coming from within and without Australia, remarkable as much for their diversity as their strength.

On the domestic front, the two-speed economy has been discussed at great length by economists and politicians, but nothing explains to winemakers, wine retailers and/or restaurateurs why conditions should be so obstinately tough. Except, it must be said, unless its Penfolds best red wines, Hill of Grace and one or two others.

Of far greater concern is the barrage of misinformation and/or what seems to be highly suspect scientific pronouncements by those who see any form of alcohol consumption in any circumstances by any person as the source of all evil. Abuse of alcohol cannot be condoned, but how to control it is another matter.

The wine industry has historically taken the view that it was better to be part of a uniform group of beer, spirits and wine producers. The reasons were the risk of divide and (be) conquered, and the far greater financial resources of beer and spirit producers to fund lobbying and (the rapidly diminishing opportunity for) advertising.

It still hesitates to overtly disassociate itself from the beer/spirits group, but I believe it must do so. The first issue is binge drinking. Unfortunately for the neo-prohibitionists, cask wine is the preferred alcohol for 1.4% of 1419-year-old binge drinkers, compared to 23% for beer and 44% for RTDs, the remainder spirits.

The next hot button is the utterly intimidating suggestion to pregnant women that the consumption of even a little wine may harm the health of their unborn child. Putting aside 500 years of consumption of wine across Europe with no statistically relevant harm to mothers with a healthy diet and lifestyle, there are two recent studies that should cause intelligent people to question the may harm weasel language.

First, three academics at Oxford Universitys National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit reviewed 3543 papers published between 1970 and 2005, funded by the UK Department of Health. Their conclusion was, This systematic review found no convincing evidence of adverse effects of prenatal exposure at lowmoderate levels of exposure.

The second paper, from the International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, assessed whether light drinking one glass per week in pregnancy was linked to unfavourable developmental outcomes in seven-year-old children. The sample was made up of mothers who never drank, those who did drink but gave up during pregnancy, light drinkers, and those who drank more during pregnancy than otherwise. In all, 10 000 children were assessed. Those born to light-drinking mothers were found to have lower behavioural difficulty scores than those born to abstainers, and were also found to have more favourable cognitive test scores compared to children born to non-drinkers especially in the case of reading and spatial skills in boys.

The external winds are the high Australian dollar, which has caused Australias exports to collapse from the dizzy heights of $2.992 million for 12 months to June 2007 to $1.847 million for 12 months to March 2013.

In those days Australias commercial wines were of better quality than, and were significantly cheaper than equivalent wines from the south of France, South Africa and Italy. That period also coincided with a weak Australian dollar, not far short of half its present value. Quite apart from currency issues, the quality of our competitors wines has markedly improved thanks in no small measure to the lessons taught by Australian Flying Winemakers in northern hemisphere countries.

This has led to (an arguably delayed) recognition that Australia should refocus its export efforts on its best wines, not its next best. This in turn led to the Regional Heroes and Australia Plus promotions by Wine Australia. Southcorp/Wolf Blass/Fosters/Treasury Wine Estates (as the corporate succession plan for the group evolved) was the first to fully embrace the value of regional brands, followed by Hardys/Constellation/Accolade, Orlando/Jacobs Creek the last to move, Lion Nathans brand portfolio largely region-based at the time each producer was acquired.

Wither now? Clearly, a healthy industry depends on export growth at margins that deliver profits sufficient to provide working capital to sustain growth. The UK is beset with broad-based economic problems, automatic indexed duty increases fixed at 2% in excess of the CPI, and the death grip the supermarket chains have on prices and margins. Niche opportunities exist, but finding them is another matter.

The US is likewise no bed of roses; while duty increases and supermarket power are not issues, it is a very competitive market, and the image of Australian wine is largely cast in the image of the (until recently) extraordinary success of yellowtail.

All of which leaves China (PRC) as the very large elephant in the room. There is no question some of the runaway success stories of today will end in tears as there is not enough detailed knowledge of the end use of Australian wine. But Australia has been an active player in the market for over five years, and if one only looked at the volume of overall trade ties between the two countries you would have no doubt about the long-term viability of the wine trade. Factor in the rapid growth of the number of seriously wealthy Chinese and the rapidly increasing inbound tourism to Australia of Chinese nationals, and the future looks even more secure.